Whitbread bounces back, BHP targets coal costs

Stocks to watch

Whitbread served up a slight improvement in sales in the first quarter of the year as its Costa coffee shops bounced back from a slowdown in the preceding few months. Group like-for-like (LFL) sales grew 1.8% as although Costa's sales were up 2.6%, the group's Premier Inn hotel chain saw LFL sales slow further to 2.1% from the rate seen in the fourth quarter.

BHP Billiton said it was targeting another $600m in coal production costs by the end of the 2017 financial year. BHP also increased its forecast for coal output for the current year to 43m tonnes, with plans to lift production to 46m tonnes in 2018.

Saga said it was on track to achieve its targets for the year ending 31 January 2017 and continues to make good progress against its strategic priorities. Ahead of its annual general meeting at its headquarters I Folkestone later, the group, which provides products and services for the over 50, said it had seen solid trading across the core insurance and travel businesses.

Takeaway food digital marketplace Just Eat announced on Tuesday that it has appointed Paul Harrison as chief financial officer and as an executive director, replacing Mike Wroe on 28 September. The FTSE 250 firm said Harrison is joining from WANdisco, a software company where he has been chief financial officer since 2013, and formerly Sage Group.

Newspaper round-up

The world’s most famous currency speculator has warned that a vote on Thursday for Britain to leave the EU would trigger a bigger and more damaging fall for sterling than the day he forced Britain out of the Exchange Rate Mechanism almost a quarter of a century ago. George Soros, writing in the Guardian, said a Brexit vote would spark a ‘black Friday’ for the UK, but the devaluation of sterling would bring none of the benefits to the economy that it enjoyed after it dropped out of the ERM on 16 September 1992, Black Wednesday. - Guardian

The European Union referendum will “come down to the wire” following a surge of support among those certain to back Remain in the final days of the campaign, David Cameron’s election strategist Lynton Crosby says. His comments come in an analysis of a poll for this newspaper which shows that amongst definite voters, the Prime Minister’s Remain campaign now has a 7-point lead, with 53 per cent of the vote compared to Leave’s 46 per cent. - Telegraph

The supermarket price war and the national living wage have helped average weekly disposable income to rise to a record £201 a week per household, according to research from Asda. Britons had £13 more to spend each week in May than at the same time last year, according to Asda’s Income Tracker, which has been monitoring household spending since 2008. The 7.2 per cent increase was the highest rate of growth since November last year, while the £201 figure was the highest recorded by the tracker. - The Times

US close

US stocks closed up but off highs on Monday as investors welcomed signs that UK voters were leaning towards the Remain camp in the European Union referendum.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average ended up 0.7%, the Nasdaq rose 0.8% and the S&P 500 closed 0.6% higher.

At the same time, oil prices settled higher, with Brent crude breaching the $50 a barrel mark, up 2.4% at $50.37 and West Texas Intermediate up 2.4% at $49.15 a barrel.